The Religious Right doesn't care about the ENDA split

The pretty insane Traditional Values Coalition just put out an action alert yesterday on ENDA talking about how it'll protect the transgender people with a pic of a drag queen (which, by the way, they lifted without permission... whatever happened to "Thou shalt not steal"?). From them, emphasis theirs:

H.R. 3685 (ENDA) will make “sexual orientation” a federally-protected class status under the law. It also includes the words “actual or perceived” which can be used to cover transsexuals, drag queens, cross-dressers, she-males and the 30 sexual orientations listed by the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM).

They hate the GLB for the same reason they hate the T-folk: we don't fit into their narrow definition of masculine or feminine, it causes disorder, that makes them afraid, and then they build up a whole complicated mass of propaganda, fear, and bigotry around us. They don't make these distinctions, so I don't see why it's strategic for us to.

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Not strategic for us as a community, Alex, but strategic for Democrats looking to shore up the gay vote in '08 while doing as little as possible to actually help us. We transfolks don't represent enough votes or campaign donation dollars for many politicians to feel that representing us and our interests will help them get re-elected. They're perfectly happy to pander to gays and gays alone because that's where the money and the votes are.

When's the last time you've heard Hillary Clinton publicly discuss transgender rights or even just say the "T-word"? The correct answer is: Once, in her 2002 Senate race, when she told a reporter that she didn't support trans rights because no one in the gay and lesbian community had asked her to.

Reality really doesn't enter into it much as far as actually doing what's right to help persecuted American citizens for this kind of politician, it's only about which groups they need to pander to in order to ensure their own continuing power and privilege. Lucky for us, there are many good ones out there as well and some of them have chosen to make a stand on our behalf. If there's anything truly important that we're learning from trying to get this bill passed, win or lose, it's about who falls into which category.